old must always be allowed to tell their stories first,—the young have time to wait. I know that you can not have seen your grandfather, or even remember your own father, he died so young."
"Yes, Holy Father, I was so little when he died."
"I could have loved him as a son, if I had known him," the Holy Father continued, speaking softly as the old do of a bygone time. "But never was any one so much a part of my heart as Barnabas was. We were born within a month of each other, at Cesena, a little old town at the foot of the Apennines. I think I never saw so pretty and pleasant an old town as Cesena—so many fine young men and excellent maidens, such venerable old people. One does not see such nowadays."
Fifi said nothing, but she did not love the Holy Father less for this simplicity of the old which is so like the simplicity of the young.
"Barnabas and I grew up together in an old villa, all roses and honeysuckles outside, all rats and mice within—but we did not mind the rats and mice. When we grew out of our babyhood into two naughty, troublesome boys, we thought it fine sport to hunt the poor rats and torture them. I was worse in that respect than Barnabas, who was
